1. Technical Field
This invention relates to vehicle article carriers, and more particularly to an adapter for securing a support or slat of a vehicle article carrier to an outer body surface such as a roof or deck lid of a vehicle.
2. Discussion
Vehicle article carriers are used in a wide-variety of applications to transport articles such as luggage which are too large or cumbersome to transport within a trunk or other interior area of the vehicle. Typically, such vehicle article carriers incorporate a slat or some form of end and/or center support to which a side rail is secured. With vehicle article carriers incorporating slats, a bracket member is typically fixedly or releasably securable to the slat and has attached to it a crossbar. A second bracket member at an opposite end of the crossbar is also either fixedly or releasably secured to its own associated slat. The slats are typically secured directly to the outer body vehicle surface and provide a means for supporting the bracket members and their associated crossbar on the outer body surface of the vehicle.
Vehicle article carriers incorporating end supports typically include a pair of side rails elevated from the outer body surface of the vehicle by a pair of end supports, which are in turn secured directly to the outer body surface of the vehicle. One or more crossbars may be fixedly or slidably coupled to the side rails such that cargo can be supported above the outer body surface by the crossbars and side rails.
With either of the above-described vehicle article carrier systems, the end (or enter) supports or slats need to be secured directly to the outer body surface of the vehicle. Typically, during construction of the vehicle, one or more openings are drilled or otherwise formed along areas closely adjacent opposite longitudinal sides of the vehicle roof or deck lid. With vehicle article carriers adapted to be secured to a roof of a vehicle, the holes are typically drilled or formed closely adjacent the outermost sides of the roof. Typically, the end supports or slats also have holes pre-drilled at certain positions there along which hasten the assembly of the vehicle article carrier to the roof.
As will be appreciated, the positioning of the openings in the slat or end support must align with the openings in the vehicle body for either the end support or slat to be easily attached to the outer body surface of the vehicle. With vehicles of different body lengths, the pre-drilled holes along the outermost sides of the outer body vehicle surface must often be drilled at varying distances. Accordingly, the length-wise spacing between pre-drilled holes in the vehicle roof, for different model vehicles, will vary slightly, thus necessitating additional pre-drilling of holes having the proper spacing in the slats. Accordingly, the manufacture and assembly of the slats or supports becomes more expensive and complicated because additional pluralities of openings which enable the slat or support to be secured to the specific pre-drilled holes in the outer body surfaces of specific model vehicles need to be provided.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide some form of adapter which enables a slat or end (or center) support having pre-drilled holes to be secured to a variety of outer body vehicle surfaces which employ openings having varying spacings therebetween which would otherwise not align perfectly with the spacings of the pre-drilled holes in the slats or supports.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an adapter apparatus for a vehicle article carrier which enables a slat or end support to be secured to outer body surfaces of vehicles having pre-drilled, punched or otherwise formed holes of varying spacing, without the need for additional drilling of holes in the slat or support itself to enable the slat or support to be secured to the vehicle.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an adapter for securing a slat to a vehicle article carrier in which the adapter has a plurality of pre-drilled, precisely positioned holes for enabling the adapter itself to be secured to outer body surfaces of various vehicles having pre-drilled holes with varying spacings therebetween. Such an adapter would therefore be securable to a wide-variety of vehicle outer body surfaces and be securable itself to a slat, to thereby enable a slat having a minimum number of pre-drilled holes therein to be secured to outer body vehicle surfaces having openings which vary in spacing therebetween from vehicle-to-vehicle.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an adapter suitable for securing a slat or support to an outer body surface of the vehicle, which adapter is light-weight, relatively inexpensive and easy to manufacture, and is concealable within an interior area of the slat or support when the slat or support is secured via the adapter to the outer body surface of the roof, to thereby not detract from the aesthetic appeal of the end support or slat when same is secured to the outer body surface of the vehicle.